Bonnie stopped to use a log for balance, while she brushed sand from
her feet and put her shoes back on. With that done, she said, "Our
encounter with the panhandler was your first official lesson about the
Minimal Chance. Your awareness of Intent manifesting a gesture for you
also had an underlying point about how difficult it is for the average
person to properly interpret what is in front of their eyes. This is why your
perceptions were aided by Intent shifting your Assemblage Point closer to
the Place of No Pity."
"I‘m with you on that."
"Actually, you‘re not, which is the next part of that lesson: What did
the big man with the donut bag represent?"
I thought about his near collision with Bonnie then I admitted, "It has
to be about me in some way, but I don‘t know what that is."
"Put self- image in the bag; he was feeding on it to the exclusion of
watching where he was going, and stumbling through his day like you did
by walking on my heel."
"I wasn‘t thinking about myself. I wasn‘t thinking or feeling much of
anything."
"He represented what distracts the average person from seeing the
essence of events." She grabbed my hand as we stepped back onto the
grass, and she began leading me toward the False Creek walkway. Letting
me go, she took a considered breath and said, "Yesterday, I told you that
everything is a reflection, and that we relentlessly summon or create these
metaphors, so the natures of the events we encounter represent our
purpose for being here. Later, just before our encounter with the
panhandler, I told you that your awareness was erratically at the mercy of
your self-interest, and that awareness in the Stalker‘s world is to
apprehend every moment in its true nature. In other words," she exhaled
deeply, "I effectively told you to pay attention to your here and now—here
it comes—here‘s your lesson—then bam! You literally walked straight
into it." She looked down and whispered. "It was beautiful."
"And I still missed it, so why didn‘t Intent shift me all the way to
Place of No Pity so I wouldn‘t miss it?"
"You would have learned what is possible to perceive, but not what is
required of you to achieve that perception." She took my arm again. "You
were doing well noticing things you would not normally bother with, but
